Burma Roberts (Harley Wood) is a young woman who enjoys an evening out with her friends dancing and having a couple beers. One evening she is out with her boyfriend, Dick Collier (Hugh McArthur) and another couple at a beer joint where they meet Tony Santello (Pat Carlyle) and Nicholas Romero (Paul Ellis). Tony invites everyone at the table to a party at his beach house next Saturday. Everyone agrees to go.
At the party Tony and Nicholas put out marihuana cigarettes. The girls at the party begin smoking and laugh uncontrollably. They then decide to take off all their clothes and go skinny dipping in the ocean. One of the girls drowns. Tony tells everyone that they need to keep the party a secret. He tells them that if they say they were drinking at his beach house they would get arrested and become wards of the state. They make up a story that they were having a wiener roast on the beach when the girl decided to go swimming.
A few weeks later Burma finds out she’s pregnant. She wants Dick to marry her but he has no money or job. Dick goes to work for Tony smuggling Marihuana. Dick is shot by police and dies. Burma goes to Tony to confront him about Dick’s death. Tony takes care of Burma and talks her into giving up her baby for adoption. He then puts her to work selling drugs to others. As the consumption of illicit drugs goes up, so does the crime rate. Burma becomes one of Tony’s best dealers and an addict herself. Not satisfied with her monetary situation, Burma hatches a plan that will get her a lot of money and take her sister down a peg. She plans on kidnapping her sister’s daughter and holding her for ransom.
“Marihuana” was released in 1936 and was directed by Dwain Esper. It is an American crime thriller, an exploitation film, and a propaganda film. The movie was written by director Esper’s wife, Hildagarde Stadie.
According to popular belief at the time, Marihuana instilled in people uncontrollable laughter, violence and extreme cruelty. But then, everything else in the movie is incorrect as well. Smoking pot doesn’t lead you to heroin. No matter how much you smoke. You also don’t turn into a dope dealer or run skinny dipping in the ocean. Unless you wanted to do that in the first place.
Dwain Esper is known for producing exploitation films. Among his repertoire are such titles as “How to Undress for Your Husband” 1937, “Maniac” 1934, and the ever popular “Reefer Madness” 1936. “Reefer Madness” has a better cult following than “Marihuana”, mainly because it is campier. Esper always pushed the envelope with his films. Touting them as “educational” meant that he could add taboo stuff that normal filmmakers couldn’t get away with. He also showed them on the exploitation circuit, which was really the only place you could see them.